Red Hill: A Dedication of Sorts

We are currently just a couple days away from the release of my next book, what is also my first novel technically speaking. Red Hill Paradise. It is a novel about a young family and their newborn daughter, who take some much needed R&R in the Appalachian mountains. It’s also about some weird folks that turn their vacation into a living nightmare.

It feels like years since this journey began…oh wait, it has been years! In that time, I’ve had a great deal to reflect on. The seed of this novel was planted, so to speak, when my wife let me know she was pregnant. You can choose how far to dig with the metaphor. I was, of course, ecstatic. But then I went through something I assume most expecting parents experience. A WHOLE LOT OF FEAR! Would the baby be healthy? Would I be a good father? How would this effect my relationship with my wife? Those questions swirled in my head and as helpful as the people around me were, parents, wife, in-laws…therapists. None of the answers I was getting seemed sufficient. Because most of the answers I was getting were of the - you just have to live and find out - variety.

So, what do writers do when confronted by questions without immediate answers? I started writing. I wrote out all my fears, both the rational (can I be a good father and will my baby be healthy?) and irrational (will a cult a la The Mansons hunt my family and I down and kill us?) I had a hell of a time, and for an hour each morning, focusing so much on those fears turned into fun. It turned into productivity. It eventually turned into this book, Red Hill Paradise. All written, edited, and in the brutal churn of submissions before I ever got to meet my daughter.

And still, those fears, though much abated, continued to rear their ugly, hydra-like head. And here is the truth - all those well meaning people that gave me what I believed were half-assed answers, they were right. I couldn’t possibly know the truth about being a dad until it was a reality. I couldn’t know how really scared I should be, but how brave I could be in this one particular way. I love being a father. I’m scared of it, but it’s something that makes every day better. All the important things that make up a life usually come down to this.

So, Red Hill Paradise is dedicated to my daughter, Lorraine. I was scared when I wrote this book. She helped me be brave, quite a long while after I wrote the last word.

**Of course - if you’d like to read more you can purchase the book in my store on this website or here.